Norway in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018

Melodi Grand Prix 2018 was the 56th edition of the Norwegian national final Melodi Grand Prix and selected Norway's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2018.[4] The show took place on 10 March 2018 at the Oslo Spektrum in Oslo, hosted by Kåre Magnus Bergh and Silya Nymoen.[5] The show was televised on NRK1, NRK TV, broadcast via radio with commentary by Ole Christian Øen on NRK P1 as well as streamed online at NRK's official website nrk.no. The national final was watched by 1.001 million viewers in Norway, roughly 150,000 less than the viewing figures for 2017.

A submission period was opened by NRK between 31 January 2017 and 10 September 2017. Songwriters of any nationality were allowed to submit entries, while performers of the selected songs would be chosen by NRK in consultation with the songwriters. In addition to the public call for submissions, NRK reserved the right to directly invite certain artists and composers to compete.[3] At the close of the deadline, a record-breaking 1,200 submissions were received.[6] Ten songs were selected for the competition by a 50-member focus group and the competing acts and songs were revealed on 15 January 2018 during a press conference at NRK's Store Studio, presented by Kåre Magnus Bergh and Silya Nymoen and broadcast via NRK1 and online at mgp.no.[7] The competing entries were later premiered after the press conference.[5]

Ten songs competed during the final on 10 March 2018. The winner was selected over three rounds of voting. In the first round, the top four entries were selected by a 50/50 combination of public televoting and ten international juries to proceed to the second round, the Gold Final. The viewers and the juries each had a total of 580 points to award. Each jury group distributed their points as follows: 1–8, 10 and 12 points. The public vote was based on the percentage of votes each song achieved. For example, if a song gained 10% of the viewer vote, then that entry would be awarded 10% of 580 points rounded to the nearest integer: 58 points. In the Gold Final, the top two entries were selected solely by the public televote to proceed to the third round, the Gold Duel. In the Gold Duel, the results of the public televote were aggregated to the results from the Gold Final and led to the victory of "That's How You Write a Song" performed by Alexander Rybak with 306,393 votes.[8]

Detailed International Jury Votes

Draw	Song
1	"You Got Me"	X									X
2	"Talk to the Hand"								X
3	"Scandilove"
4	"Light Me Up"
5	"I Like I Like I Like"
6	"Stop the Music"
7	"Tengo otra"
8	"Moren din"
9	"Who We Are"				X	X				X
10	"That's How You Write a Song"		X	X			X	X
International Jury Spokespersons
France: Edoardo Grassi  Russia: Ekaterina Orlova  Czech Republic: Jan Bors  Denmark: Molly Plank  Bulgaria: Vasil Ivanov  Estonia: Mart Normet  Macedonia: Aleksandra Jovanovska  Israel: Alon Amir  Sweden: Helen Mattsson  United Kingdom: William Lee Adams

Norway opened the second semi-final, preceding Romania. At the end of the show, they were announced as one of the ten countries who qualified for the final, meaning that Rybak had made it to the final in both of his Eurovision attempts and the second year in a row that Norway had appeared in the final. In the winners' press conference following the semi-final, Rybak participated in a draw to see which half of the final he would perform in. Ultimately, Norway were drawn to compete in the first half of the grand final. It was later revealed that Norway won the second semi-final, scoring 266 points, 133 points from the televoting and 133 points from the juries. [11]

Norway performed seventh in the grand final, following the entry from Estonia and preceding the entry from Portugal. Although expectations were high for Rybak given his track record (he spent a great deal of time as second-favourite to win in the betting odds), he ultimately didn't crack the top ten for either the juries (where he finished 16th, with a single 12 points from Italy) or the televote (where he came 11th), earning him 15th place with 144 points.[12]

Voting during the three shows involved each country awarding two sets of points from 1-8, 10 and 12: one from their professional jury and the other from televoting. Each nation's jury consisted of five music industry professionals who are citizens of the country they represent, with their names published before the contest to ensure transparency. This jury judged each entry based on: vocal capacity; the stage performance; the song's composition and originality; and the overall impression by the act. In addition, no member of a national jury was permitted to be related in any way to any of the competing acts in such a way that they cannot vote impartially and independently. The individual rankings of each jury member as well as the nation's televoting results were released shortly after the grand final.

The following members comprised the Norwegian jury:[15]

• Guri Schanke (jury chairperson) – artist, represented Norway in the 2007 contest
• Steffen Falch (Spira) – rapper, artist
• Andre Bravo – DJ
• Ingeborg Walther – artist
• Hanne Haugsand – artist, represented Norway in the 2000 contest as member of Charmed

Detailed voting results from Norway (Semi-final 2)[13]

Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
		Spira	A. Bravo	I. Walther	H. Haugsand	G. Schanke	Average Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Norway
02	Romania	7	13	9	10	10	9	2	13
03	Serbia	12	10	13	7	9	11		10	1
04	San Marino	14	9	12	15	15	15		17
05	Denmark	13	17	14	8	7	12		1	12
06	Russia	3	5	11	11	16	7	4	15
07	Moldova	17	14	15	16	8	16		6	5
08	Netherlands	1	7	4	5	2	3	8	4	7
09	Australia	5	2	3	2	4	2	10	3	8
10	Georgia	16	16	8	14	13	14		12
11	Poland	4	8	17	17	17	10	1	5	6
12	Malta	10	4	2	4	3	5	6	14
13	Hungary	11	15	16	12	14	17		9	2
14	Latvia	2	3	7	3	5	4	7	11
15	Sweden	8	1	1	1	1	1	12	2	10
16	Montenegro	15	12	10	13	11	13		16
17	Slovenia	6	6	5	6	12	6	5	8	3
18	Ukraine	9	11	6	9	6	8	3	7	4

Detailed voting results from Norway (Final)[14]

Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
		Spira	A. Bravo	I. Walther	H. Haugsand	G. Schanke	Average Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Ukraine	10	19	17	23	22	19		20
02	Spain	15	4	9	13	7	9	2	24
03	Slovenia	14	14	20	21	19	21		23
04	Lithuania	8	8	14	7	6	8	3	1	12
05	Austria	7	5	3	6	3	3	8	3	8
06	Estonia	16	25	12	14	23	20		15
07	Norway
08	Portugal	11	6	21	10	8	11		25
09	United Kingdom	13	13	8	22	10	15		14
10	Serbia	17	21	16	18	17	22		21
11	Germany	1	2	2	3	2	1	12	5	6
12	Albania	3	16	18	16	18	12		22
13	France	4	9	4	2	13	4	7	10	1
14	Czech Republic	5	15	11	17	21	13		7	4
15	Denmark	20	24	23	20	14	23		2	10
16	Australia	6	7	5	4	11	5	6	12
17	Finland	18	18	19	9	16	17		13
18	Bulgaria	19	17	22	5	12	14		16
19	Moldova	25	20	25	25	24	25		17
20	Sweden	12	1	1	1	1	2	10	8	3
21	Hungary	22	22	24	24	25	24		18
22	Israel	23	12	13	12	20	16		4	7
23	Netherlands	2	10	6	15	9	7	4	6	5
24	Ireland	9	11	10	19	5	10	1	19
25	Cyprus	24	3	7	8	4	6	5	9	2
26	Italy	21	23	15	11	15	18		11